Lane Windham (she/her) is Co-Director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and directs WILL Empower. Dr. Windham is an experienced organizer, educator, historian and activist. She holds a doctoral degree in U.S. history. Her book about union organizing in the 1970s, Knocking on Labor’s Door (UNC Press 2019), recounts how employees attempted to unionize against overwhelming odds and overturns widely held myths about labor’s decline.
Lane spent nearly twenty years working in the union movement, including as media outreach director and specialist for the national AFL-CIO from 1998 to 2009. She organized unions among clothing and textile workers throughout the South in the 1990s. Lane’s current research focuses on how working people can best build power within today’s shifting economy. She has published widely on issues of class, race, gender, economic justice and the future of work. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Labor and Working Class History Association (LAWCHA) and is on the Advisory Committee of Labor and Research Action Network (LRAN). Lane directs WILL Empower, an ambitious collaborative project with Rutgers University to promote women’s leadership in the labor movement and the struggle for economic justice.
Education:
University of Maryland — M.A., Ph.D.
Duke University — B.A.